Fun Is The Best Word To Describe This Movie

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2014)

There seems to be a recent revival of the "kaiju or monster genre" of film, and I am pretty happy about that. That's not to say that I'm a fan of the old style kaiju movies, but I think it's a genre that is perfect for this day and age of CGI. There is so much you can do, and this movie is an example of that.
Guillermo Del Toro was certainly the right man for the job to do this film. His creativity really shines through, especially with the monsters, and it's great to see, especially if you saw it on the big screen. It's also a wonderfully colourful film, which is really visually appealing. The place where Del Toro goes wrong, however, is with the screenplay. I know there is two actual screenplay credits, but it feels like it was written heavily by Del Toro. When it comes to writing American characters or just English speaking characters in general, Del Toro isn't that great. In fact, it can be downright cheesy. But just like the recent television show The Strain, which Del Toro also wrote, the cheesy-ness kinda makes it fun. Most of the characters are stereotypes, but they are fun ones that can be easily enjoyed. Also similar to the writing of The Strain, the stand out thing with this movie is just the who general idea of the Kaiju and their attack on earth. It just feels like a really cool and creative general idea, and that keeps you on board even when the individual characters dialogue falls flat.
At the end of the day, this movie is total fun. It's not some deep art house film, it's just a visually appealing and well made action film that entertains. It's certainly a movie that needs to be seen by people who like films like Godzilla and other monster movies. (Ironically enough, if you have seen the recent 2014 Godzilla remake, the two monsters that Godzilla fights are incredibly similar to two Kaiju that show up in this movie. In both films, one monster has wings and flys, and the other moves like a Gorilla. Just thought i'd mention that fun fact.)